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Worth the money - will work for years

AppearanceIt is made from solid metals with a shiny chrome effect. It gives it a professional and clean appearance. It seems quite large for a 2 slice toaster, and perhaps still has an industrial feel.

How does it work?First thing is that it runs on electricity and so has to be plugged in at all times. There is a red switch, visible in the pictures, which lights up when it is switched on. This switch also selects whether just one slice heats up or two. This is good if you just like one slice of toast, but if you forget to switch it back to two slices and put two in it can be quite annoying. As seen in the picture, there is a lever with a solid black knob on it. This controls the 'lift' mechanism. It is really simple as this lever is directly connected to the inside, no middle man involved. If you push it down the toast comes up, and vice versa. Once toast is in there is no setting for heat, which makes thing easier. You simply turn the black wheel on the right to the amount of time you want it cooked for - longer equals more cooked. There is a humming noise as the dial slowly spins back, and when it is finished it pings. If you want more time you simply turn it round some more. The first slices take around 1.5 minutes for golden, and this time is handily marked with an arrow on the time dial so there can be no confusion. Subsequent slices take considerably less time. As the elements heat up the stainless steel construction, they in turn radiate heat. Once it is hot you can turn around toast in about 40 seconds which is really handy if you have a lot of toast to make.

This is because dualit started out supplying toasters for industrial purposes that could turn out hundreds of slices each morning, and so the more you use it at once, the quicker it gets. This industrial standard also translates into quality. They feel extremely reliable and indeed come with a 5 year warranty. There is also a metal crumb tray for easy cleaning.

Overall this is an extremely reliable and efficient toaster.

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Great quality product, but at a price

Having written about my beloved Dualit handblender yesterday, I thought it was about time I confessed about my toaster - yes, I am almost embarrassed to admit, I do own one of these lovely shiny, ridiculously expensive toasters.

My husband bought this toaster around 12 years ago. He went for the chrome one, and I must admit, it does need a fair bit of polishing to keep it looking its nice and shiny best. The toaster is completely stylised and of course the sleek curves and the simply beautiful look of the product is why anyone buys it.

Apart from the way it looks, the toaster is a pretty nifty piece of design - it has a manual pop up, which is great as it keeps your toast warm until you are ready to butter it. There are therefore only two electronic components - the elements and the dial which you turn to show how long you want your toast to be toasted for. You can buy spare parts for both these elements, so you really never need to replace your toaster, just replace any part that may break down the line.

Dualit toasters are designed for catering environments, and after the first batch of toast has been toasted each morning and the elements have warmed up, you can toast your bread probably in around a minute or so. This used to catch me out as I used to put the timer on the same amount of time for the second batch as the first and wonder why the first lot were perfect and the second all burnt!

The slots for the toast are generous and you can easily fit in a thick slice of bread or a crumpet. The toasting is even and generally rather scrummy.

There is a removable crumb tray so you don't have the whole horrid tip the toaster over the sink to get the crumbs out problem.

As well as the sparkly chrome which we have, Dualits now come in a wide variety of colours to match your colour scheme - the Barbie pink is particularly fetching (!) though I think the original chrome works best.

All in all we have been delighted with our extravagant toaster. It happily toasted for 11 years before we had to replace an element (£13 from the Dualit website - quick and easy to replace by handy husband) and is now set for the next 11 years, and it does look just so pretty!

We spent around £100 for our toaster and now they retail at £145 from John Lewis, though you can get it for under £130 from Amazon, which is a ridiculous amount of money for a toaster. However, if you view it as a piece of art for your kichen and one that produces yummy toast as a bonus, it might be slightly easier to swallow, but then again....

Just as an aside, although I love my toaster, I have to mark it 4 out of 5 just because of the price.

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Dualit make the best toasers - long lasting and toasts well.

Dualit is a brand which is renowned for making great toasters. Not only do they work well and last a long time but they are also aesthetically pleasing - in stainless steel they look expensive and nice in your kitchen. They also come in a variety of colours ie Red if you have a more modern and funky kitchen. Either way, it looks good!

We paid £120 for ours at the time - we have had this probably going on for 5 years now I would say and it shows no sign of waning. The one downside I would say is that if you are toasting crumpets the slots just aren't quite big enough sometimes. Other than that - no complaints when it comes to bread! I do wish I'd bought the 4 slice version though I have to say - its annoying doing 2 slices and waiting around for more, so when this one eventually breaks I'll be buying a 4 slice one no doubt about it!

The toast comes out well every time - there is a knob on the right for the time, and obviously everyone is different on how well done they like their toast. After practising a few times you'll find the time that's right for you. You also have a button which gives you the option of toasting both slices in both slots or just the one on the left hand side. Handy if you only want to do one slice of toast. The toaster doesn't have a pop up feature, but had a manual lever which you push down to push the toast upwards. Means you can easily check it while it's toasting to check it - and this doesn't turn the timer off either. If you find the toast it done but the timer still has time left on it, you can turn the toaster off from the wall plug and just let the timer run itself out. If you force the timer knob the other way to finish it you may end up breaking it, and its not a good idea to let the imer run out, with the heat on, with no toast in it!

I find all the sliced bread I buy from the supermarket ie Kingsmill etc fits perfectly in this. If you go to the bakers and buy a fresk loaf then the ends will probably stick out of the ends of this. Of course you can turn them over halfway through, but I only ever buy packets of bread so don't have this problem.

The toaster also has a crumb tray underneath which you can pull out afterwards and dispose of the crumbs - you do still get a bit pf spillage under the toaster but not as much as a normal toaster.

I suppose over £100 for a toaster may lead you to think it's an expensive gadget but the fact that I've had mine for so long with no problems means its well worth the money. You can buy a kettle to match this, and get a breadbin etc in the same colour and your kitchen will look modernised as well! A great buy.

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Yes its a bit expensive, but then you get what you pay for, and their products last a long time.

DUALIT 2 Slice TOASTER.

When i was given this toaster as a pressie for Christmas, i was very pleased as at the time, it matched some pots in my kitchen that were for tea coffee and sugar.

It is a very smart toaster, alas ive just brought a new one now, which doesnt reflect on the Dualit toaster just that i wanted to give this one to my daughter who is moving soon, yes another daughter moving. And a good excuse to give away my bits and pieces and get new ones.

Having had this toaster for just over a year now, it has always prooven to be a great toaster indeed. It looks like a high quality product as with all the Dualit products, i was just sitting and trying to think what else i had in my kitchen i could give away, to one of my children and use that as an excuse to get some new stuff.

PERFORMANCE WISE **********

Always had perfect toast, you can adjust the toaster to get the brown just right on your slices of toast. I was also able to fit crumpets in mine no problem, and it always was easy to clean, as it has a little tray underneath whereby all the crumbs collect into this and it is fairly easy to pull out and empty.

I think that i will stick to this make of toaster again, but will probably buy myself a bigger one this time around, one that does four slices, my daughter was saying that there is a manufacturer that is selling a toaster which also as well as cooks your toast, cooks an egg at the same time, ready to serve on your toast, cant remember the manufacturer of that but will ask her and let you all know.

Dualit Toaster, not only looks nice and is easy to wipe over with a dishcloth, it is also a good all round toaster and will make a nice unexpected pressie to my daughter. I will stick to this brand as i have had that toaster for just over a year with no major problems.

Mine was a pressie for Christmas but i know that this companies products are quite expensive, and that my toaster would now retail at about the sixty pounds mark, which is well worth it considering the length of time, i have owned this and i think that mine came from Next, but will have to double check that. Plus they come in all different nice bright colours as well as the chrome ones too.

Thanks for reading and rating my reviews. x

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a great toaster to invest in

Many moons ago, about seven years ago, I was lucky enough to win a Dualit 2 slice toaster in a competition. At the time I thought it was great as it was stainless steel and looked sparkly in my kitchen. I needed a new toaster so it solved a problem and I thought no more about it.Head back to the present day and I am still using this toaster in my kitchen now. It took me a long time to realise the exact cost of the toaster, but when I realised that I had won over £100 worth of toaster I was gob smacked. At this time you can buy it on Amazon for £99 so the price hasn't decreased very much over the years and the model is still being sold. That goes to say a lot about a product when you can still buy it years later. There must be something good about it.

The toaster has a sleek curved appearance to it. There are no stark corners or lines on this model. If I was buying a toaster this particular design wouldn't jump out at me and make me buy it, but in today's market a lot of toasters are designed in a less boxed design than they were seven years ago. I think it fits well in the market now, but was well ahead of itself in design when the model was introduced.

My toaster is all stainless steel but you can buy them now I notice in a range of colours. The different colours help you co-ordinate with your kitchen and they will probably aid the toaster to stay looking fresh and clean, but more on that later.

The toaster doesn't have a mass of functions and dials to struggle through just to brown a piece of bread, but the functions it does have, whilst simple work well for a modern busy kitchen.Your bread slots into the toaster and when you are ready, the front lever is moved to lower the bread into the grill plates ready to be toasted. This in itself won't set the toaster working unlike some models on the market. You have to turn a dial on the front to set the time you wish to let your bread toast for.The dial goes up to four, but I have always found that the number two setting is plenty for a nice golden brown crisp piece of toast. This really will be trial and error on your part depending how crisp or burnt or not you like your toast.

During the toasting process the grills appear to heat to a high temperature. There is an almost spacey glow that comes from the toaster which makes it look very futuristic sometimes, especially in a dark room.

The only other option available on the toaster is a red flick switch that allows you to choose whether you want to brown both sides of your bread or just one. I like this function if I want to make French toast or am browning a crumpet for example.

To clean the toaster, there is a very simple tray that pulls out of the bottom, but beware whilst this does hold all the crumbs, it's easy to tip up and you can end up with more crumbs over the work surface than those that stay on the tray.The stainless steel does need a bit of attention, and if not kept up your toaster can look worn before it's time. This is one of the only down sides to the product. I went through a period of ill health when I was pregnant and obviously the toaster being cleaned wasn't a great priority on the rest of the family's list which is fair enough. Since then I have found I can't get the slatted sides of the toaster to look as shiny as the front and back panels. It's for this reason that I think a coloured version may work better in a modern kitchen. It would possibly be easier to keep clean.

Over the years, my toaster has only deteriorated minorly. The functions I find that are starting to wear are when I toast bread sometimes I have to flip the bread half way through the toasting process to prevent one side from burning and the other toasting nicely.

I am still very happy with my toaster and will continue to use it until it stops working, or perhaps I'll win another one who knows. If I was put into a position of buying a new toaster however I am not sure I would part with £100 to buy it. Despite it working brilliantly and being a simple yet sleek design, the price is a bit more than I would be willing to pay in one go to be able to toast my bread, however it does hold fantastic value for money as it has saved me spending £30 and above every year or so on a new toaster.

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Solid and dependable.

If you want a toaster that will last longer than most marriages then this is the toaster for you.I purchased my 2-slicer in 1995 and it is still going strong, producing consistently good toast time after time.The manual timer is both simple and rewardingly touchy-feely. The crumb tray (boring I know) is a dawdle to use and even after all this time the toaster looks as good as new.I would accept that toasters have moved-on over the past few years and this traditional Dualit is rather less fashionable than its pastel-coloured or sandwich-toasting brethren but this is, to me, rather reassuring. I could not imagine waking up, filling my glass full of orange juice and then placing my 2 slices of frozen seeded batch into my Dualit only for it to let me down. This would truly be a disaster of global importance.It is always good to know that somethings can be relied upon.

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Lets face it if you can afford to be spending £120 on a toaster, you either have plenty of dispoisable income or you really really like your toast. Safe to say this is a very good looking piece of kit. If you like your kitchen appliances with stainless steel finish you'll love this toaster. Its standard of fit and finish is what you'd expect if you were spending this kind of money on a toaster. The slots are some 28mm wide with wire guards that adjust automatically for the thickness of bread your using. The slots are also compatible with a sandwich cage (available seperately) for toasting buns, toasted sandwhichs and crumpets. The toaster is very well built and weighs in at 3.5 kgs (about 8lbs) The toaster has two slots and can be set to use either both or one elements, thus saving you money on your electricity bill as well as prolonging the lifespan of the heating elements. There is also a black rotary dial that allows you to choose the time for which your toast is cooked exactally each time you use the dualit, rather than relying on a manufactures 'default' settings. This product produces great toast, the bread was toasted perfectly evenly all over every time. A mediumly done piece of toast takes just 2 mintues from cold. You also don't have to hurry back to the toaster as soon as your toast is done, the bread is held in the slots and doesn't pop up until you press the large black lever, the timer just turns off the heating elements, so your toast is still kept nice and warm. In conclusion, Dualit probably make the finest toasters in the world, in terms of both looks and overall quality. However this quality doesn't come cheap. If you can justfiy spending £120 on a toaster, then this is the one to buy.

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The Dualit 2 Slice Toaster is definitely the last toaster you'll ever buy. Robust, beautifully manufactured and stylish. I think it makes an excellent addition to any kitchen. The Proheat elements inside are changeable and can be ordered directly from the manufacturer if they break down (which is unlikely). There is a small crumb draw which slides out easily for cleaning. I got mine for eighty quid in Tesco but they usually retail at over £120 (the same as a four slice). Silver is the colour!